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Digitally-Knitted Airbus Move Is the Aeron of Airline Seating

02.25.19 | By
Digitally-Knitted Airbus Move Is the Aeron of Airline Seating

Flying economy class for more than an hour or two these days presents a bevy of ergonomic challenges prone to leave anything but the impression of friendly skies. In the pursuit to maximize costs, air carriers have inched toward draconian bare bone seating, lining up passengers ever closer with a minimum of legroom, and increasingly only the suggestion of cushioning. Which makes the promise of Move seating by LAYER for aircraft manufacturer Airbus a heartening reboot for economy class travelers looking for a little more control while traveling across short-to-middle haul routes.

LAYER’s Move seating jettisons the bulky and hard cushioned seating typically found greeting passengers assigned an economy ticket, replacing it with a lightweight and dynamic digitally knitted one-piece polyester wool blend fabric seat stretched across an aluminum and carbon fiber frame. The Move’s most important feature isn’t visible: a smart-tech conductive yarn woven within the fabric. Coupled with various density zones across the seated body, the smart-enabled fabric offers an adaptive level of customized control, giving passengers the ability to monitor and control their seat’s tension, temperature, pressure and advise about intervals of movement to maintain healthy circulation. All features are accessible via an app designed by LAYER, the sum envisioned to provide the sort of innovative and comfortable experience mostly associated with business class airfare.

The overall form factor resembles the airy and slimmer profile that has characterized task and office seating the last few decades, resulting in an adaptable seat structure that satisfies the needs of airlines, reducing on-board weight and resulting in fuel savings, while also optimizing ergonomic comfort for passengers.

LAYER notes Move isn’t designed to be a passive solution. The Move seats are engineered to continually monitor passenger positioning, automatically adjusting tension and support to maintain optimal ergonomic comfort according to bio-feedback factoring in the passenger’s weight and size. Similarly, the integrated tray table is height adjustable and can be rotated for optimal length or width, according to passenger preference.

A central island integrates a small inflight entertainment system display with a tray table, while laptop users are offered storage between each seat.

Seating numerical assignment is clearly indicated across each side of the headrest, the sort of subtle detail that in combination with other comforts can quell the stress of travel.

For more examples of LAYER’s work, check out our past features archive spotlighting other innovative designs, including LAYER founder Benjamin Hubert’s Where I Work profile.

Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.